Do you think the New Deal was a success?

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Introduction

Do you think the New Deal was a success? There are many good and bad points about the New Deal. There is a lot of evidence to show that the New Deal was very successful, and I am going to discuss these successes first. In Roosevelt's first 100 days he introduced many measures that helped restore American's confidence. The first thing that he did was to close all the banks for a day so that he could inspect their books. This was called the 'Emergency Banking Act', and Roosevelt was allowed to do this because of the extraordinary powers granted to him. After he had inspected the bank's books, only the banks whose books were financially sound were allowed to re-open and it also stopped the banks using customers money for investing in stocks an shares on Wall Street. This meant that people knew their money was safe and their confidence in banks was restored. People started to put their money back into the banks after this. This was definitely a success of the New deal. Another financial success of the New Deal was the Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC). ...read more.

Middle

Also creating employment was the Public Works Administration (PWA), it was responsible for slum clearance and house building in the cities. Among other things, new hospitals and schools were built. This scheme was given $3,300 million to spend on major public works. The Civil Works Administration (CWA) was set up to provide immediate employment, in its first four months it spent $933 million setting up over 180,000 work schemes. It only lasted a year but it provided employment for 4 million people. All of these work schemes were a very successful part of the New Deal. I think that the greatest success of the New Deal was the fact that all of the measures combined helped save the USA from falling under Communist or Nazi rule. This happened in Germany, Italy and Japan. Because of this, after World War Two, America emerged as the strongest nation in the world. Despite all of these successes, the New Deal attracted many criticisms and hit many failures. Certain groups of people did not benefit from the New Deal, for example the Black community in the US. The Blacks remained as second class citizens and there was still wide spread racial discrimination. ...read more.

Conclusion

At the outbreak of World War Two, American industry increased production and sold billions of dollars-worth of war goods to the Allies. The government also started re-arming and recruiting in case America was forced to enter the war. The economy soared and when America entered the war in 1941 unemployment fell below the level of 1929. I think that the New Deal was successful in the way that it created immediate employment at the height of the depression and it helped to start to restore consumer confidence in America. Communism and Nazism were avoided, and inter-state co-operation in the Tennessee Valley had shown what could be achieved. Unemployment fell and farmer's income had improved. Trade unions and state help had improved living and social conditions. However, Blacks were not helped and still lived in poverty, and unemployment, although lower than before, still numbered 6 million. Government spending was far too costly and it was inevitable that the New Deal would have eventually ground to a halt. When Roosevelt did cut back on spending unemployment rose dramatically. I think that in the short term the New Deal was a success but in the long term, had World War Two not broken out, the American economy would not have recovered. Laura Spandler ...read more.

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